Destiny is currently home to three factions: Dead Orbit, Future War Cult, and New Monarchy. Two other factions have been rumored to exist: Osiris, and Seven Seraphs. Very little is know about any of these.

Factions are represented by vendors in the Tower, and offer legendary gear for use at level 20. In order to buy gear from these factions, you must accrue reputation with them in the crucible until you gain Rank 2 for each faction.

You can represent each faction throughout the game, but only ONE at any given time. So what do you need? You need rep!

How do I get Faction Rep?

Simple-- visit the faction of your choice, buy your class-specific item, equip that item, and then play PvP, complete bounties, and run strikes/patrols. You'll earn faction-based rep for each of these activities.For more info on gaining rep, this guide is fantastic.http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2g37d9/guide_vanguard_rep_faction_rep_and_vanguard_marks/[1]

So, which faction do I pick?

Great question--it depends. First off, your class is irrelevant. There is no better faction for any one class. When you pick a faction, you must decide which two attributes/stats you want to focus on. If the story/role-playing aspect is important, that too will play a role in your decision (more information on their backgrounds is available below). There are three attributes:

Intellect: reduces the cooldown time of your superDiscipline: reduces the cooldown time of your grenadeStrength: reduces the cooldown time of your melee modifier

Choosing which factions you want to work with is a simple combination of which abilities you use most and which faction interests you more. Personally, I would think that the chance to use your favorite two abilities takes precedent. My information says a total of 315 crucible marks will get you a full set of faction gear.

Faction History

Dead Orbit: Dead Orbit Foundries appears to be a shipyard, or an organisation known to produce starships, owned by the Dead Orbit faction. Dead Orbit grudgingly maintains a presence in the Tower to equip their champions in the Crucible. "Superb" technicians and specialists work for the group. Members of Dead Orbit intend to escape an already dying Earth before the Darkness's return, as they've given up on the Traveler and put little faith in the City's ability to hold out against a major attack. While they recognize that such a move could be very costly in terms of lives, they see no other alternative for survival, and instead put their faith in finding enough Golden Age technology in vaults and abandoned shipyards to allow them to escape and find a new homeworld. They are even willing to cross New Monarchy's legal authority to achieve this end, but they also recognize they will need to bring Guardians to their cause in order to fight against any future threats.

Future War Cult: Members of the Cult are known for their military prowess as well as their secrecy. They believe that war with the Darkness is inevitable, whether they stay on Earth or attempt to flee, and therefore they must be ready to fight. They are also deeply concerned with fate, and whether or not it is possible to alter history altogether. The Cult is led by a group called the Inner Circle. The origins of the FWC is unknown, but archaeological findings indicate that they have existed as early as the late Golden Age. The Future War Cult was once an outsider faction. When the Concordat faction fell from grace, the Future War Cult was selected to replace it in the Consensus and was granted access to the Tower. The Consensus felt that the Cult's philosophy was more interesting than dangerous, and its focus on combat would both attract former Concordat members and aid in the Guardians' effort to restore the City's territory.

New Monarchy: New Monarchy is a staunchly pro-City faction that believes in law and order. They hope to rebuild the Golden Age and believe in humanity's ability to overcome their current hardships. While the Faction Wars may have ended with the establishment of the Consensus, New Monarchy still aims to place a Monarch in charge of the City in place of the currently fragile alliance between factions.Best of luck!

I'm sticking with the OG Vanguard since the FWC weapon selection doesn't offer snipers and auto rifles, which is what I primarily use. Maybe after I get to VR2 I'll switch over to the FWC just for kicks, but for now I see no reason to do so.

Crucible plays WAY better and is more productive when you play with your friends. You can luck into a good group of randoms but usually you don't get the same communication as you do with your bros from the clan.

During the Alpha and Beta, a couple of us were able to roll kids more often than not. Yeah, we lost some matches and had some close, but overall we did pretty good (including myself and I'm usually a FPS weak link).

Last night, I played 4 matches with randoms and got destroyed all four matches. I did fairly well for myself (usually top 3 on my team) but that's not saying much when you've only got 6 players per team and my teammates kept dropping and quitting because of the beatings we took.

Do I need to join a faction? Am I just wasting points/ranks if I don't at least join one, or is there an advantage to not being in one? I'm still confused on this. Also, if you join one and then change, and later change back- do you loose your level or do you return to the level you were previously?

~mrmiller

_________________We are a brotherhood bound by honor, our strength is in our numbers, we are S7!*General Disclaimer- I can't type or spellClan Founder

S7 mrmiller wrote:Do I need to join a faction? Am I just wasting points/ranks if I don't at least join one, or is there an advantage to not being in one? I'm still confused on this. Also, if you join one and then change, and later change back- do you loose your level or do you return to the level you were previously?

~mrmiller

Just different items you can buy. Honestly it's probably best to go without a faction at first. From what I've seen Vanguard marks can only be spent at the vanguard store. So if you start out with a faction you stockpile vanguard points, but won't be able to spend them until you go back and start leveling vanguard again. It seems to just depend on what stats or items you're wanting to improve/specialize in.

Ah, so you only get Vanguard Marks (the default "faction" if you will) or a particular Faction Marks. So it might be best to rank Vanguard up to 3 or whatever the level is to get the nice gear, then switch over and do the factions and rank them up. I'm doing a lot of Crucible, and Crucible marks might be as good as any of the faction ones anyhow.

~mrmiller

_________________We are a brotherhood bound by honor, our strength is in our numbers, we are S7!*General Disclaimer- I can't type or spellClan Founder

S7 mrmiller wrote:So it might be best to rank Vanguard up to 3 or whatever the level is to get the nice gear, then switch over and do the factions and rank them up.

~mrmiller

This is what I'm doing. Not interested in Crucible whatsoever so Vanguard will get ranked up to the max and then I'll see where I go from there. The Warlock Vanguard and Vanguard Quartermaster offer everything I need, and also have a full list of guns (not just 4 for the other factions) to choose from.

S7 mrmiller wrote:Do I need to join a faction? Am I just wasting points/ranks if I don't at least join one, or is there an advantage to not being in one? I'm still confused on this. Also, if you join one and then change, and later change back- do you loose your level or do you return to the level you were previously?

~mrmiller

Just different items you can buy. Honestly it's probably best to go without a faction at first. From what I've seen Vanguard marks can only be spent at the vanguard store. So if you start out with a faction you stockpile vanguard points, but won't be able to spend them until you go back and start leveling vanguard again. It seems to just depend on what stats or items you're wanting to improve/specialize in.

This. You guys hit it pretty much on the head. Vanguard Marks can only be spent on Vanguard Gear. So unless you are playing a lot of PvP, stick with Vanguard. that said, if you play a lot of Crucible, you can get Rep for a faction pretty fast once you have the Crucible Marks saved up. My advise for most people would be to work on Vanguard Stuff first.

_________________"Console A sucks! Console B is way better and never has problems! I don't know how to build a cheap PC that out performs both! Rabble rabble!!"

I got Purple INT/DIS from the Vanguard and they had INT/STR too. Be sure to take a look at what they have. Factions do not have exclusive rights to those builds. But as long as you have crucible marks to spend, Factions is probably easier to rank up.

Also of note, you can only earn 100 Marks each week for both Vanguard and Crucible. So if you max out one early, switch to the other.

_________________"Console A sucks! Console B is way better and never has problems! I don't know how to build a cheap PC that out performs both! Rabble rabble!!"

So I was mistaken and FWC doesn't have that piece of gear I mentioned. I've stopped going after FWC after obtaining rank 1 - just going for Vanguard now - maxed 100 marks for the week last night. It resets today so hit me up for strikes.